


this is the start

by crazyinjune (orphan_account)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, Oikawa is a handful and Kenma is not amused, Post-Canon, Tokyo (City)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-23 12:07:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6115945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/crazyinjune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oikawa spends a summer in Tokyo. </p>
<p>Kenma gets a whole lot more than he bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this is the start

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maroonpantaloons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maroonpantaloons/gifts).



> I was going to publish this ages ago, meant to be a long oneshot as a testament, tribute, and thank you for our friendship but I couldn't get the words out. You'll have to get it in pieces.  
> At the very least, you've always forgiven me for not meeting my writing deadlines.

“I’ve found you a new roommate,” Kuroo says over his coffee.

Kenma can’t help but flinch. “I don’t want a new roommate.”

“You want to pay double rent?”

“I just—” Kenma fidgets with the sleeves of his sweater, far too long and flapping at the ends of his wrists. Come to think of it, it might actually be Kuroo’s sweater. Kenma wonders if he’ll want it back before he leaves for Hong Kong. “I don’t want to live with some stranger.”

Kuroo smirks at him from across the table. Nothing good has ever come out of that smirk of his Kenma thinks. “He’s not some stranger.”

“What?” Kenma blanches, thinking of possible candidates. “It’s not Lev, is it?”

Kuroo only raises an irritatingly amused eyebrow. “Lev’s still in high school. And if it was _anyone_ from Nekoma, wouldn’t you know by now?”

He has a point. Even after all this time, the Nekoma group chat thread is still going strong. Although it wouldn’t be beyond Kenma to have missed something. Just _looking_ at it exhausts him most days. Lev uses too many flashy stickers for anyone’s liking, and it takes a while to scroll past Yaku’s berating to find any sort of relevant content.

Kenma runs his head through a list of people that Kuroo could possibly be so smirky about. No on that comes to mind sees plausible, except—

“Kuro,” Kenma says flatly. “If Bokuto Koutarou moves into this apartment, I will never forgive you.”

 

* * *

 

 

It’s not Bokuto.

“Yahoo, Pudding-chan!” A smile, a wink, a wave.

Kenma stands in the doorway, dumbstruck.

He’s _heard_ of Oikawa Tooru, of course--from Shouyou, telling him all about the _Grand King_ that Nekoma never got a chance at playing, because for all Oikawa’s _grandness,_ his team had  never made it to Nationals. He’s seen that poisoned honey smile flashed at him in through a tv screen, glossy on the pages of Kuroo’s volleyball magazines.

The last thing he expected to see was that smile in his _living room._

Oikawa quirks up an eyebrow, looking down at Kenma. “Are you going to let me in?” 

Kenma backs up wordlessly, letting Oikawa stride into the apartment. He’s got a large duffel in one hand, and _of course_ a volleyball in the other, one that he has the gall to spin one handed as he lets his eyes roam over the space, hardly sparing Kenma another glance.

( _Show-off_ , Kuroo had called him as he thumbed through a magazine one day. Kenma had glanced over to look at the picture and was inclined to agree.)

Kenma feels a hand on the small of his back, nearly leaps out of his skin before realizing the hand is Kuroo’s. He must have followed Oikawa through the door. “Meet your new roommate,” Kuroo says. “Oikawa, Kenma. Kenma, Oikawa.”

Oikawa flops gracelessly onto the couch, making himself at home far too quickly. “Good to meet you.” Another flash of that smile.

Kenma turns an accusatory glare on his best friend. “He’s a total stranger.”

Kuroo gives him a defeated sort of shrug. “You know _of_ him?”

“You know,” Oikawa says in a singsong voice from his perch on the couch, spinning his volleybal above his head. “I’m still here.”

“How--?” Kenma asks Kuroo.

“Captain’s network!” Oikawa chirps up. Kenma is nonplussed, and Oikawa’s eyes go comically round. “Oh, Pudding-chan, you don’t _know_?” He turns his gaze to Kuroo and Kenma lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “ _I_ thought you said he was captain last year.”

Kuroo gives him a close lipped smile in return. “Well, no one outside of our year is in the _network_ , are they?”

“Kuro,” Kenma says. _Explain._

Kuroo sighs. “Some of the captains from my year have kept up correspondence. Mostly Tokyo and Miyagi since it was Sawamura’s idea in the first place, you know, Karasuno’s old captain. Me and Bokuto is a given, we’ve got Shinzen’s old captain, Date Tech’s….and this guy.”

Oikawa looks smug. “Ushiwaka-chan wasn’t invited.”

“Ushi—?”

“Ushijima Wakatoshi. Shiratorizawa,” Kuroo clarifies.

Another name Kenma’s only ever heard of from the likes of magazines and Hinata Shouyou. He’s half afraid that Ushijima is going to bring his hulking frame through the door next, and has a mind to curl up in Kuroo’s suitcase and get on that plane with him before that can happen.

“Anyways” Kuroo says. “Oikawa’s doing his summer in Tokyo—”

“I have an internship—”

“And I won’t be here, so,” Kuroo finishes. “It worked out.”

Kenma wishes Oikawa would stop _looking_ at him, wonders if it’s appropriate to hide behind his bangs and shrink back into his bedroom for the rest of the summer.

He thinks that maybe the best strategy is to do exactly that, pretend Oikawa isn’t here. “Your flight is in three hours,” he tells Kuroo with a glance at the clock.

He shrugs. “I’ll make it in plenty of time. Just--I wanted to make sure you two would be okay here.”

“Oh, we’ll be fine,” Oikawa trills. “I’m sure Pudding-chan and I will be the _best_ of friends soon enough.”

Kenma almost can’t tell if it’s a threat or not, what with the way the words almost float out of Oikawa’s mouth, seemingly innocuous. The look in his eyes and the curl of his lips tell something else entirely.

Kenma’s always been good at beating bad guys, but he’s never had one come out of the screen before.

 

* * *

 

**_I should have told you it was him beforehand. Sorry._ **

_it’s okay. have you landed yet_

**_Yeah. I think some guys are going for dinner soon._ **

**_Don’t go avoiding dinner because you’ll have to walk past him to get to the kitchen_ **

_i won’t…_

**_Kenma._ **

_i won’t._

 

* * *

 

He tiptoes into the kitchen, hoping, praying that Oikawa is nowhere to be found. It’s blissfully empty, and Kenma breathes a sigh of relief.

He’s going to have to go to the convenience store for food--neither he nor Kuroo actually use their kitchen for much other than storage for packets of ramen, takeout, and all of Kuroo’s sports drinks. Kenma doesn’t actually like them, prefers normal juice and milk, but Kuroo’s left a whole case behind. Maybe Oikawa will drink them. He seems the type to be _advertising_ sports drinks, and part of Kenma wonders why he’s not doing so already.

Most of him doesn’t have the energy to wonder, and he focuses his attention on getting out the house because he doesn’t actually remember how long he’s had this hollow feeling in his stomach. There Kuroo goes, reminding him to eat something even from a different time zone.

The door swings open before he can get to it, and Kenma immediately backs up about twenty steps as Oikawa walks in with a grand flourish of his arms.

“I am the _best_ roommate in the world, Pudding-chan,” he says, spreading his bag laden arms. “I brought dinner.”

Kenma looks at him. “Plates are in the kitchen.” He tries to move past to the door but is blocked by a bag to the face.

“You’re not eating with me?”

Kenma bites his lip. Eating with Oikawa means _talking_ to Oikawa and having those eyes on him every second and he doesn’t know if he can deal with that on any level whatsoever. But he can’t say this out loud, so he only looks down and feels the back of his neck flare up with heat. “I was going to get something from across the street,” he says to Oikawa’s left arm.

He can see Oikawa’s nose wrinkle. “Nonsense! Not when I brought soba, it’s such a nice day for it!”

He’s not wrong. It’s been hot and muggy, only serving to amplify the fog in Kenma’s head. Cold soba _does_ sound nice, and he can hear drinks clinking around in Oikawa’s bags.

He sighs. At any rate, it would save him a walk across the street and an excruciating conversation with the girl behind the counter who always seems to be secretly giggling at his hair. “Okay.”

“Perfect,” Oikawa says breezily, piling the food on the rickety kitchen table. There’s noodles and cold drinks and about six different dipping sauces.

“Do you need that many?” It seems wasteful and complicated for what’s supposed to be a simple meal.

Oikawa is flippant. “I get bored.”

Kenma makes sure to sit as far away from Oikawa as possible, which is difficult because it’s a small table and this puts him in Oikawa’s direct line of sight.

“ _Itadaikimasu!_ ” Oikawa practically sings it, while Kenma says it under his breath to his bowl.

Oikawa hums under his breath in between slurping his noodles, and it does nothing to quell Kenma’s anxiety. He wills his chopsticks not to tremble in his hands, because Oikawa is bound to notice. Oikawa back in his chair the same casual, confident way Kuroo does, twirling his chopsticks in one hand.

“ _So_ ,” he finally says, tipping his chin up. “Pudding-chan—”

“Don’t.”  The word slips out of Kenma’s mouth before he can stop it.

Oikawa’s brows fly into his hairline. “Don’t what?”

“Call me that.” it’s fine from his old teammates, from Nekoma because even Nekoma remains his safety net. Everything about Oikawa Tooru screams the opposite of _safe._

“Ah,” Oikawa tuts. The chopsticks go twirling again, and his face settles perfectly smooth and neutral. “Kozume-kun.”

The way he says _Kozume-kun_ , Kenma would almost rather be called Pudding-chan again.

Oikawa must have registered the surprise on Kenma’s face. “Is there a problem?”

“I didn’t think you’d listen,” Kenma admits.

“You asked. I’m not _rude_ , Kozume-kun.”

Kenma thinks about Shouyou telling him about Oikawa’s devastating serves, blasting across the court and driving his opponents into equal amounts of fear and despair and wonders if those are considered _rude_.

“Anyways,” Oikawa leans close, and Kenma wants to shrink back. He doesn’t, and Kuroo would be proud. “You’re scary, did you know?”

“I—” Kenma parts his lips, but nothing comes out. “What?”

“Your playing,” Oikawa says, tapping his chopsticks against his lips. “My goodness, Kozume-kun, your game sense is almost as good as _mine_.”

Kenma only flushes in response.

“Your new university team has a weapon on their hands.”

He hasn’t played anything but two on two games with Kuroo, Bokuto, and Akaashi since last year’s Nationals. His university doesn’t even _have_ a volleyball team, not like Kuroo’s does. He’s studying animation, most of his classmates have never so much as touched a volleyball. “I don’t have a new team.”

“Oh?”

Kenma shrugs. “I stopped playing after high school.”

“Captained your team to Nationals,” Oikawa says quietly. “And then you just quit?”

“I only played because Nekoma couldn’t do it without me.” It’s tiresome, having to explain himself to the likes of Oikawa. It’s going to take three days of sleep to recover from this conversation alone.

Oikawa takes a long, particularly annoying slurp of his noodles. “What a waste.”

“You’re not playing either.”

“Excuse me?” There’s a flash of anger in Oikawa’s eyes, and Kenma tries not to flinch at it.

“You’re here for an internship,” he points out. “Kuroo’s in Hong Kong for a volleyball invitational, but you’re here for an internship.”

Oikawa’s lip curls. “Aren’t you sharp.”

Fear unfurls in Kenma’s stomach. “Not really,” he says anyways. “It was obvious.”

Oikawa lets out a laugh, sharp and bitter.

“Why aren’t you playing?” Kenma asks quietly.

“Can you keep a secret, Kozume-kun?”

“Mmm.” It’s not like Kenma has more than more than a handful of verbal interactions with anyone on any given day. None at all other than Kuroo, these days.

Oikawa leans close, eyes dark, wide, and utterly unreadable. Kenma’s skin prickles. “Oikawa Tooru is not a genius.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I swore I wouldn't fic for this fandom, guys, but here I am. I blame Oikawa Tooru entirely.
> 
> P.S. according to the Haikyuu wiki, Kenma's game sense isn't almost as good, but it's _better._ Nobody tell Oikawa. 
> 
> Come visit on [tumblr!](http://www.crazyinjune.tumblr.com)


End file.
